What is surveillance capitalism?
Surveillance capitalism is when companies collect your behavioral data (like which websites you visit, your interests and worries, who you talk to, what time you go to sleep, etc.) and make a profile about you. They then sell this profile to advertising companies and government agencies, both foreign and domestic.
Did we consent to having profiles made about us and sold to the highest bidder?
The profiles can be resold over and over again to whoever has money and wants to buy it, with no oversight or background checks on the buyers. That’s how personal data ends up in the hands of bounty hunters and stalkers. These profiles are most valuable when they are kept constantly up-to-date, which is why every effort to free ourselves from surveillance capitalism helps, no matter how small!
But I have nothing to hide!
That’s great! Unfortunately, it’s irrelevant. Even though surveillance capitalism can help police catch bad guys, it’s a very poor substitute for good police work because it catches literally everyone in the net.
Surveillance capitalism is a threat to marginalized people and communities, whistleblowers, human rights activists, and domestic abuse survivors (among others) because it puts their personal data, thoughts, location, and behaviors on the open market for anyone to buy. Even the bad guys themselves can buy these data profiles, so being a law-abiding citizen is not really relevant if you end up targeted for identity theft or some other scam.
But believe it or not, there is an even graver threat from surveillance capitalism.
Surveillance capitalism vs. democracy
Surveillance capitalism played a key role in two decisive political decisions in the 2010s, a time when surveillance capitalism was still not generally known or understood. A lot has been written on this topic and it’s covered well in a 2019 documentary called The Great Hack, but to put it briefly:
“Chris Wylie, the former director of research at Cambridge Analytica, which has been accused of illegally collecting online data of up to 50 million Facebook users, said that his work allowed Donald Trump's presidential campaign to garner unprecedented insight into voters' habits ahead of the 2016 vote. He added that a Canadian business with ties to Cambridge Analytica's parent company, SCL Group, also provided analysis for the Vote Leave campaign ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum. This research, Wylie said, likely breached the U.K.'s strict campaign financing laws and may have helped to sway the final Brexit outcome.”
For a more in-depth description, please read ‘Surveillance Capitalism or Democracy? The Death Match of Institutional Orders and the Politics of Knowledge in Our Information Civilization’ by the great author and pioneer in the study of surveillance capitalism Shoshana Zuboff.
Fortunately, we already have lots of tools at our disposal to fight back against surveillance capitalism. All you have to do is download and use these alternatives and you’re already shifting the power away from Big Tech. It’s that easy!
The more people make the switch the more power over our lives we reclaim, so every individual matters. And you don’t need to instantly switch out all the apps you’re used to for new ones, try just one alternative app and see how it goes! You might find that it’s empowering to be an individual with a voice as opposed to the product on a Big Tech platform.
More alternatives:
"Tired of relying on Big Tech for your collaboration, communication and productivity needs? You’re not alone. Whether you’re concerned about data privacy, compliance, vendor lock-in, or digital sovereignty, the shift to European-built software is gaining serious momentum. And for good reason: these platforms respect your data, operate under GDPR by default, and are often open source or self-hosted."
"Each person has their own reason, but the list of options are growing. Whether it is privacy concerns, environmental, boycotting the tech oligarch, non-existent customer service, the prolification of AI or any other cause. Underpinning all of it is the idea that too much power is given to the few, and it is time to empower the many.
Purchase with Purpose is a movement that looks to grow and support people in making this switch."
Let's take a quick look at a paper by Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan that proves it.
"We must take a more rational approach. As we established in the previous section, eliminating poverty and improving human welfare requires focusing on specific types of outputs, and ensuring universal access to these things. PPP-based metrics of aggregate output (such as GDP) measure the production of all goods, including those that have limited relevance to poverty and human welfare."
"This ignores important questions about which sectors need to grow, and whether this could be achieved by reallocating productive capacities from other sectors. Labour and materials that are currently used to produce mansions and casinos can instead be shifted to producing affordable housing; farmland used to produce beef for consumers in the global North can instead be used to produce nutritious foods for workers in the global South, and so on."
"Recent empirical studies have established the minimum set of specific goods and services that are necessary for people to achieve decent-living standards (DLS), including nutritious food, modern housing, healthcare, education, electricity, clean-cooking stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigeration, heating/cooling, computers, mobile phones, internet, transit, etc. This basket of goods and services has been developed through an extensive literature..."
DLS minimum requirements
The paper goes on to calculate the energy and material needs for everyone to have access to these basic living standards. The results?
"These figures are based on a projected population of 8.5 billion in 2050 (consistent with SSP1), whereby extending DLS to all would require 125–183 EJ per year. This amounts to 30–44% of current annual global energy use (which was 418 EJ in 20198). Note that these are total annual requirements. To cover DLS gaps requires much less."
"For a population of 8.5 billion, provisioning DLS would therefore require 28–40 gigatons of material per year, representing 29–42% of current global annual material use (which was 95 gigatons in 201911)."
So we would only need 30-44% of global energy use, and 29-42% of global material use!
The paper goes on to highlight one of the key reasons that prevents us from doing this:
"This is challenging within a capitalist market economy, however, because capital generally requires increasing aggregate output (GDP) to stabilize accumulation ... and because in capitalist economies any reduction of aggregate output triggers social crises characterized by mass layoffs and unemployment. Furthermore, under capitalism, decisions about production are made by wealthy investors with the primary goal of maximizing private profits, rather than meeting social and ecological goals. "
"Necessary goods and services that are not profitable are often underproduced (e.g., Christophers 2022). Post-capitalist approaches are therefore needed, including public finance for urgently necessary forms of production (e.g., public transit, renewable energy, insulation, efficient appliances), establishing universal public services to ensure access to necessary goods... planning to reduce less-necessary output in a just and equitable way, and guaranteeing universal access to employment and livelihoods through a public job guarantee and income floor (Olk et al 2023; Durand et al., 2024, Foster, 2023)."
The paper goes on to describe changes for the Global South as well, it's worth a read!
Crossposted from Mastodon https://toot.community/@a2c_Helsinki/116131135598176328
Great points, thanks for the comment!
Personally I use the Fediverse as a compliment to legacy social media, but honestly I am just starting to look. Do you have any tips or recommendations?